Thankfully I had some time to paint today.  I think The Blues Woman is finished.  I'm very pleased with how the painting looks.  The model for it is such an awesome woman, it was really important to me to paint her well and show the respect I feel for her.  I hope it conveys something of her personality and deep richness as a person.

Thanks for watching the process as I've worked on the painting!

Now on to working with the tattoo on Scar Belly.  I'm going to see what happens if I let the gorgeous vines on the tattoos on her arms extend their way into the background.  It feels like a fanciful, fun thing to do so I'm going to try it - nothing ventured, nothing gained!

In Memoriam and Illumined from Within

Today I had a lot of stuff going on with deliveries of artwork for an upcoming student art show, but thankfully I also got some painting done.  Last night I had a chance to draw 2 pictures onto their canvases.  Today I finished the third then began painting right away.  I was accompanied by Julie Child's book on tape, My Life in France.  That was a fun accompaniment.

In Memoriam was the first piece I worked on.  It's very small, just 8"x12".  This is the underpainting/first layer.  The model has a tattoo on the back of her neck which I will put on there once I've made the skin a bit more refined looking. I'm looking forward to playing with her hair too.  There is some very beautiful light on individual strands, making her neck look even more elegant.  That'll be fun to work with.   It feels like a good start so far.

The second piece is quite complex and dramatic and is proving a lot of fun to work on.  It's of a woman out in the woods leaning over her knees.  The light struck her in such a way that it appears she is shining from within.  I'm very excited about the image. 

Looking at the first stage on the left, it's hard for me to see that it'll ever turn into anything I'll like.  I can say that now, but as I worked on it, I felt like it was wonderful, going beautifully, looked great.  It's only in hindsight that I can see that my vision of what it will be is sometimes stronger than the reality in the moment.  That's a good thing!  Otherwise I might never finish anything!

The right hand side is much more complete, but still only has a couple of layers of paint on it, and I haven't done the far right side at all yet.  The model has amazing cascading red/maroon/orange hair falling over her arm and knees - those are shadows from the hair on her knees looking confusingly like flames or something odd.  It's going to be so much fun to refine this piece and make it glow.  The final touch will be to draw her tattoo on the whole length of her arm.  Yikes!  I haven't really painted many tattoos yet, so this will be a real challenge - to represent the beautiful art of the tattoo artists on the models' bodies and do it well.  The tattoos my models have are quite complex and detailed, so it will take a great deal of work to represent them well.  Part of me would like to ignore the fact of them, but I am pretty sure that wouldn't be an accurate representation of these women if I did that!  So onward ho!  Can't wait to see how they turn out!

Tattoos

I went to another Red Tent Evening which Khalima, a local belly dancer extraordinaire, organized.  We gathered as women for a fabulous vegan potluck then spent the evening talking about Beauty and the pressure we feel as women to be beautiful, how we define beauty, what is now considered beautiful which wasn't in the past.

One of the most interesting parts of the conversation for me was talking about tattoos. It was a great conversation!  Many, if not most, of the women there 35 and under had tattoos.  I don't think anyone who was older did.  I realized that when I was growing up, tattoos were something bikers had, Hell's Angels.  Or sailors.  Big dirty muscular men with bad body odor who were probably going to hurt me if they got me alone with them.  I avoided said men assiduously.  So when younger people started getting tattoos the last 10 years or so, I didn't have a place in my brain to put the concept.  What were they trying to say?  Why?  Why did they choose to decorate themselves FOREVER in such a way?  Didn't they realize they'd never be able to change it?  Were they really sure they'd want a cartoon cheeseburger on their leg for the rest of their life?  The Red Tent Gathering is a place where I could ask such questions with respect and curiosity and have others answer me with respect and pride in their choices.  It's amazing to be able to be so inquisitive and get really cool answers!


I came away understanding so much more about tattoos.  These women love their tattoos!  (Of course!)  Each one is a piece of art they have chosen to buy, with which to adorn themselves.  It was a conscious choice.  In some cases, the choices were made when they were younger, and they perhaps wish they hadn't made that particular choice of image, but in that case, it helps them remember their younger, more vulnerable, hurt selves and to have compassion for them.  There is a story that goes with each tattoo, a clear reason why they chose that image.  It's a bit like the stories people tell with their scars.  You can learn so much by asking a person to show you their tattoos and to tell you about them.

It was a great lesson for me to ask these women about their tattoos.  What had once been something I'd judged (out of fear and non-knowing) became something to admire and accept, a way to get to know someone better.  It makes me happy to shift my consciousness in such ways because a whole other segment of the population becomes accessible to me when I no longer judge them, when I have understanding of them.


And that, in a nutshell, is what I'm trying to do with my entire project - help make people more comfortable with and knowledgeable about women's bodies of all shapes and sizes - so we can all accept each other rather than judge.

Loving our bodies unconditionally. Finally.

I am furiously determined and full of righteous anger today, so if that doesn't interest you, then sign out!

I have been confronted this weekend with the judgments of a woman who has no comprehension of the work I do.  She has asked to be taken off my mailing lists.  Of course I have no problem with that - anyone has the right to get the mail they want and to not get what they don't want.  I have no desire to confront people with images of my work - wait, that's not true.  Today I actually want to confront every person in the world with the images of my work. 

I want them to confront their own uptight, rigid, fear-ridden judgments about bodies.  I want them to look at the bodies I've painted, to really see them.  So what if some of the women have tiny breasts?  Or huge pendulous ones.  Or big hips.  Or no waists.  Or saggy butts.  Or 36-24-36 hourglass figures.  Or scars.  Or warts.  Or whatever the fuck they have.  It actually isn't about our bodies, people.

It is about who we are on the inside that counts.  And if we as a society or as an individual are spending all our time focused on the outside package - breasts, hips, thighs, faces, clothes, haircut, shoes, lipstick - whatever - then we are missing the most important thing there is in this world - the gorgeousness of our souls.  We are each of us spectacularly fabulous human beings.  Even the badly damaged ones.  Yes, those of us who are damaged are amazing and deserving of love as well.

And it pisses me off that some people don't get that.  I hate it that they have the gall to judge someone based on their appearance and don't even take the moment to let go of that knee jerk reaction.

Lately I have photographed women who are overweight, who have piercings and tattoos, whom I might have walked past with trepidation in the past because their choices were unfamiliar and uncomfortable to me.  But let me tell you, those women are enriching my life immensely.  I am finding a depth of soul in them that I LOVE.  They are deep, rich, soulful women with an enormous capacity for love, self love included.  Heavy though they might be, they have come to terms with their bodies.  They love them.  Yes, they love their breasts and their bellies and their hips and their thighs.  All the parts that would make some people walk past them and sneer.  What a loss to those frightened people to miss the soulfulness.  Do your own work, people.  It's your stuff if you can't see their humanity. 

A dear friend shared her belief with  me that we are all part of God's artwork.  The old gnarled tree in the forest doesn't deserve our distain just because it isn't bright and young and perky and flexible and springy.  We don't usually detest a tree.  We respect its age.  We look at the crags and splits and wounds and admire the patterns that have been created by the years of being alive.

Why can't we do that with people?  Why do we judge people's appearances?  Why do we ignore elderly men and women?  Are we really so frightened of our own mortality?  Of our own ugliness?

I encourage you to not give in to those fears.  I encourage you to sit with them, to become aware of them, to journal about them, to let yourself feel them fully.  Only then will you be able to see others with compassion.  Only then will you be able to face yourself with compassion.

 

Imagine standing in front of the mirror and caressing your body.  Tell yourself with utter love and compassion how deeply you love yourself.  Allow yourself to feel all the pain you've taken on about your appearance - the comments you've overheard from others, the insistence others have thrown at you that you be or look different than you do.  Look at your own flesh while you do that.  Know that you are precious.  A child of God.  Deserving of unconditional love.  Your body is the vehicle for your soul here on Earth in this lifetime.  How can you NOT treasure and bless it?  It is allowing you to be here right here, right now, walking or crawling or sitting or standing or lying on this planet right now, today, in this very instant.  You are experiencing the amazing gift RIGHT NOW of being with yourself in all your glory and your pain and your suffering.  Perhaps you can feel a glimmer of hope, the thread of hope that you, yes, YOU, are deserving of love.  That you are a worthy person.  That you deserve to be loved.  Nothing but love.